Maid for My Nemesis novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Six A.M.

The first bus on Saturday leaves Torrington at five fifteen, and it was empty except for me and a man asleep against the window.

I watched the dark fields go by and tried to guess what Julian was going to say.

He had a secret wife, I decided.

He was dying, or he was a spy, or he had a twin.

By the time I walked up the gravel drive, with the sky turning gray at the edges, I had run out of guesses.

The front door was unlocked.

I stepped into the hall, and I heard a sound I could not place at first.

A rhythmic scraping, slow and steady.

It was coming from the middle of the black and white floor.

Julian was on his knees in the center of the hall in an old gray shirt.

A bucket sat beside him, and he had a scrub brush in his hand.

His sleeves were pushed to his elbows, and his glasses were smudged with soap.

He was scrubbing the tiles one at a time.

It was the way you scrub when the floor is not really dirty and you need something to do with your arms.

"How long have you been here?" I said.

He looked up, and his eyes were red.

"Since four."

"Julian, this floor was clean on Wednesday. I mopped it."

"I know. I couldn't sleep."

I set down my bag.

I crossed the hall and crouched beside him and took a brush out of the bucket.

"Not that one," he said, a little hoarsely. "I want to show you first."

He stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans, and held out his hand to me.

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